Was US-Iran rivalry Driving the Exclusion of Candidates in Iraq? Was Allawi the Target?

I am going to speculate a little today, but I am hoping it is informed speculation. I think an end-game drama is playing out in Iraq between the United States and Iran, and possibly among factions of Americans in Iraq, over the likely leader of the next Iraqi government. I am going to argue that the disqualification of 500 candidates, some of them prominent Sunni Arabs, was not a sectarian measure, but a strategic strike at a single candidate. Update: The ban on the 500 candidates has just been lifted.

I think the visit was to strategize with the US over how to counter the Shiite chess move, which was probably carried out in consultation with Iran, aimed at checkmating candidate for prime minister Ayad Allawi. Allawi is one of five or six plausible successors to current Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, assuming al-Maliki cannot muster the seats to allow him a second term. They also include Vice President Adil Abdul Mahdi of the Shiite Islamic Supreme Council of Iraq, former prime minister Ibrahim Jaafari, who broke off from the Da’wa Party, perpetual gadfly and Neoconservative favorite, Ahmad Chalabi, and a couple of others. Of them all, only Allawi is anti-Iran. Of them all, only Chalabi might try to recognize Israel, though many suspect him of being a double agent for Iran.

Al-Maliki, head of the Islamic Mission Party (Da’wa), is running in the State of Laws coalition. But that coalition is mainly made up of the Islamic Mission Party, which just has not been a dominating party in the elections held so far. Unlike in the past two parliamentary elections, al-Maliki declined to join the big coalition of Shiite religious parties, now called the Iraqi National Alliance, which includes the Islamic Supreme Council of Iraq and the Sadr Movement. The Shiite vote could therefore end up being split.

Since the Iraqi constitution specifies that the single party or party-coalition that has the largest number of seats will be given the first shot at forming a government, al-Maliki could only get a second term if Da’wa does unprecedentedly well and outpolls almost all the other Shiite parties together. Worse for Shiite interests, you could imagine a situation where Da’wa gets 65 seats and the Iraqi National Alliance gets 70, but where some other coalition gets 73. It could be the Kurdistan Alliance, or the new cross-sectarian secular coalition of Ayad Allawi, to which Hashimi belongs. If Allawi’s list got the 73 seats in this scenario, he would have the chance to try to form a government.

Allawi, an ex-Baathist of Shiite extraction, was a CIA asset in the 1990s in London, in charge of running the officers in the Iraqi military who defected from the Saddam Hussein regime, and of coordinating terrorist attacks in Baghdad and attempts to assassinate or overthrow Saddam Hussein. Allawi appears to be too much of an Arab nationalist to look with favor on reconciliation with Israel, and so he was disliked by the Neoconservatives in the US. But he was favored behind the scenes by the CIA, which managed to convince George W. Bush to appoint him interim prime minister in June, 2004, a post he held until he was defeated by the religious Shiite parties early the following year. While Allawi was in power, he appointed hard line Sunni Arab nationalists to key positions, including Defence and Interior, who constantly attacked Iran and called it Iraq’s number one enemy. Iran was very upset about this emergence of a Washington-backed ‘Baath lite’ in Baghdad, and may have responded by helping fund the political campaigns of the Shiite religious parties in fall of 2004. The United Iraqi Alliance, Shiite religious parties who made a coalition with each other, unseated Allawi in the January 2005 parliamentary elections, and trounced him again in December 2005.

Allawi leads a small coalition that has 25 members in parliament. He has occasionally attempted to put together a coalition of parties in hopes of unseating al-Maliki, who is too pro-Iran and pro-Shiite religious groups for his taste. But Allawi’s efforts in that direction never bore fruit and he appears not to have gotten the green light from Washington to make a serious push.

But Allawi suddenly became a plausible candidate for prime minister in January for four reasons.

First, the Shiite religious parties are not running unitedly, and so the Shiite vote could well be split.

Third, secular parties did relatively well in the January 2009 provincial elections. A Sunni Arab nationalist party, al-Hadba’, took over the northern province of Ninevah. Secular or tribal Sunni Arab groupings did well in al-Anbar and Diyala provinces. And while Da’wa or the Islamic Mission Party is a Shiite fundamentalist grouping, it avoided religious rhetoric in the campaign and did well, especially in Baghdad and Basra.

An Allawi victory would be music to Washington’s ears, because the Obama administration and the US military could withdraw from an Iraq ruled by a secular Arab nationalist government profoundly suspicious of Iran.

The banning of the candidates, with Mutlak at their head, had been initiated by the Accountability and Justice Committee, headed by Ali al-Lami, a militant Shiite. He was arrested in summer of 2008 by the US military on returning from a trip to Beirut, on suspicion that he was a covert leader of the rogue cells called “Special Groups,” within the Mahdi Army. These Special Groups were suspected of being run by the Jerusalem (Quds) Brigade or special forces of the Iranian Revolutionary Guards. He has also been linked to the Asa’ib Ahl al-Haqq, a splinter of the Sadrist Movement involved in the kidnapping of Britishers. Al-Maliki recently released a leader of this radical group, Qais al-Khazali, who will likely campaign for al-Maliki.

Lami is himself running for parliament as part of the Shiite religious parties coalition. He is said to be close to Chalabi, who supported the attempted exclusions.

So it looks to me as though Lami’s move may have been intended to make sure that Allawi’s Iraqi National Movement could not emerge as the largest single bloc in parliament on March 7. The constitution, mind you, doesn’t specify that the party or coalition that forms the government be a plurality or majority. It just has to be the single largest group. By excluding Mutlaq, Lami would have blunted al-Maliki’s momentum significantly, and might even have provoked some Sunnis to boycott the elections, which would have weakened Allawi’s bloc further. Unsurprisingly, al-Maliki was enthusiastic about the exclusions.

I surmise that Iran, including the Iranian Revolutionary Guards Corps that used to run Lami and Khazali, and some Iraqi Shiite religious parties are conspiring to ensure that whether al-Maliki survives or not (and he is perfectly acceptable to them), the next prime minister of Iraq comes from one of the Shiite religious parties and so remains aligned with Tehran. A possible but unlikely scenario is that fierce Da’wa/ ISCI rivalry allows Chalabi to emerge as a compromise candidate.

The March 7 elections will therefore help to determine whether the US withdrawal from Iraq leaves behind a strong ally of Iran or a government with lukewarm or bad relations with Tehran.

Personally, I don’t find it plausible that even without the disqualifications of Mutlak and some others, now lifted, Allawi’s Iraqi National Movement can emerge as the biggest in parliament or that he can become prime minister. He has too much baggage. But he now has a fighting chance.

It is said that al-Maliki’s own polling points to a Da’wa win. But that development would also surprise me. I think he could get a second term, but it would be by entering a post-election coalition with the Iraqi National Alliance (the Shiite religious parties). It is also possible that the INA will have the most seats, and that Adil Abdul Mahdi of ISCI could emerge as the strongest candidate.

Since al-Maliki is the first fairly strong leader in post-Baath Iraq, and since he seems genuinely to have gotten control of the Iraqi armed forces, any change in prime minister does raise the specter that his successor will not be as good at the game of military influence, leading to more instability.

Long story short, the March 7 elections and the politics around them are only in part sectarian. They are also about the relative position of Washington and Tehran in Baghdad as US troops rapidly withdraw.

It remains to be seen I Washington’s surprise win over Iran Wednesday is a prelude to a major geopolitical shift in Baghdad on the eve of the US withdrawal.

Anonymous

the chances of Allawi becoming the PM of Iraq are as likely as Ron Paul becoming the president of the US. The powers that be will never allow it. If you weren't so biased by your hatred of Ahmedinejad and his regime in Iran you would see that too Prof.

mauisurfer

An Iraqi appeals court has struck down a ban imposed on hundreds of candidates for suspected ties to Saddam Hussein's regime, possibly allowing them to run in next month's election.link to english.aljazeera.net

Anonymous

Allawi in a statement to congressman Delahunt, house committee on foreing affairs, subcommittee on international organization, human rights and oversight: September 17, 2009" following the January 2010 elections, one of the first actions that should be taken is to convene a regional conference…… and must include Iran and Syria as they have major concerns vis-a-vis a future democratic Iraq that is friendly with" foriengnaffairs.house.orgThe associated press yesterday: " Washington has submitted to Damascus the name of it's proposed new ambassador to Syria, the first since 2005, the latest step toward improving ties within the two nations"So it seems that Allawi and the US are on the same track regarding Syria. Are they on the same track regarding Iran?now that the president seems to tighten his fist? Leila.